In "The Hidden", players choose the role of either a near invisible killer, Subject 617, or one member of an Intercept squad who have to capture him, I.R.I.S. In the simple but challenging gameplay of an 'one against all'? mode, Subject 617 creeps/sneaks through the maps armed only with a knife and three pipe bombs. The IRIS team carry a selection of weaponry, fully customisable at round start, from F2000 assault rifles through to shotguns or sub machine guns as well as a pistol as a secondary weapon. However, they can hardly see Subject 617 as, just like the 'Predator', only the outline of his silhouette is visible. On top of that the Hidden also moves a little faster and has many abilites such as pouncing, wall grabbing, corpse pinning and the fatal pigsticker attack. Therefore co-operation is necessary for I.R.I.S. if they wish to prevail (if they dont want to become the prey/victim themselves). This leads to an outstanding gaming experience on public servers:...

This competition needs no introduction. For the past month the community has been voting for their favorite mods. The votes were cast and the results are in. There are a few surprize packets but all in all, the results reflect the 2005 mod making year.

The problem with Something of the Year Awards is that everyone's taste is different and there are over 3,000 mods competing to be in the top 30. One person may like blinding paced gameplay, with gibs and glory decided every second while others like slow and strategic team play. You can't please everyone and we don't intend to - hence we let *you* the community vote for your top mods and we throw in a few of our favorites along the way.

This is one area we are always criticized in, the fact that these awards recognize the most popular mods and not necessarily the best. I certainly don't disagree, it is a shame that some brilliantly through and detailed mods made for games with a smaller community don't make the cut. But we must all keep in mind that there is a reason *why* these mods are so popular and it isn't because they are bribing 1,000's of people!

With this in mind let’s discuss the year that was 2005. Compared to previous years, it felt a little slow due to a slew of new games been introduced with new SDK's to learn. As mod teams made the switch to the next generation engines, so the learning process re-began and it took quite some time before we started to see what the new breed of mods were capable of doing. We are still a fair way off maximizing these engines potential so there are certainly exciting times ahead.

Results

2004 was Half-Life 1's year and 2005 is Half-Life 2's year with mods from other games such as Battlefield, the UT series and Doom 3 also making the cut. Valve really has recognized the importance of mods and capitalized on the mod making movement. Their continual support and close ties with the mod making community has placed them in a position of power and the path they have blazed is been chased by the other game developers. Proof of this is the sheer number of mods made on their engine which have since gone pro. Their community is a force to be reckoned with and whilst they may be knocked off their perch in 2006, in 2005 they still reign supreme.

GMod is more than JBMod ever was, because JBMod was purely phygun, and the psygun code is included with the SDK. That is why the Garrysmod phygun and the JBMod psygun have the same code, not because Garry stole JBMod's code.

Also, I was truly sad not to see Iron Grip: The Oppression not get in the up-coming mods, but apart from that (and too many remakes scoring way too high) it was good chosing by the community.

Garry, when I said massive advertising I meant sending out e-mails. I don't ever remember seeing a JB mod news bit, which is why I made the comments on you having the better advertising out there. You were more exposed and yes I don't understand the 'not a mod' either.

On the JB mod bit I spoke about, that was from the information I gathered from several sources around the community during the time of the incident and thereafter. That is what I have heard and understand.

Okay,
I have to say that I'm shocked U5: Lazarus did not make it anywhere on this list. 5 years in the making, a complete recreation of Ultima 5 with all the original dialog & NPCs, plus a ton of new dialog & npcs... all of the things which make a game an "ultima" implemented... all in all one of the single most impressive mods I've ever seen. Oh yes, they implemented this in the dungeon siege engine. They also redid combat, levelling, skills, etc. Really- check it out: U5lazarus.com

Hey i love the whole idea of a Decent source version of Half Life, but Kalashnikov you honestly dont deserve the credit you get for making BMS, from what i've heard people edit your news additions and some times write them for you all the time, and thats about " all you do in the mod "

Your lucky that your mod is a complete rip and remake with the title "Black Mesa source" and a complete story written and mapped out for you or you'd be back on the couch watching Frasier.

Good Luck with your mod, i believe you'll get all the fame and sex you want in the world.
Gus.

a asshat cause you think you are witty. If you think about it you sat in a chair and typed utter ********...do you want a cookie?

If the team wants to join his mod of BM then so be it and if they post news what does that proove? You guys should of been around when the HL Racing stole HL Rallys code.........that was some hot **** and fighting back and forth. The moddb.com awards is just that moddb.com awards. PC Gamer and Voodoo Extreme and IGN and Gamespy have the same awards for games. They do not allow you to vote its based off staff. moddb.com offers something no mod site does a chance to be part of the site and make a better place.

Everyone has their role on the development team. I don't take the credit for Black Mesa, nor have I ever. It's been the team effort since day one. I helped put together this team which now is labeled as the best upcoming modification of 2005 and I don't think at any point do people say "omg Kalashnikov is so cool making Black Mesa Source". You almost never hear my name mentioned in conjunction with Black Mesa. People praise BMS, and everyone has their own opinions.

It's true I am not the greatest level designer, it's true I have others read over my news posts. Why? Because I want to make sure it's right. I didn't realize that checking with others on my work was so very bad? Gus, some members have problems with me because of my level design record of which I will say this officially: I have changed chapters over the time of development to make way for a far more talented level designer, RabidMonkey. Do you guys not like how Black Mesa Inbound has come out now? I manage skinning, texture art, ftp ops and hosting.

If developers have so much of a problem with me, then they would have said something to me rather than speak out to others. I find it relatively dispickable Gus that you would ever, ever think I'm trying to steal attention away from any other developer on BMS.

Wow nice to see me and kalash made it into the good books of a few idiots.

True we don't do as much visual work as the other team members, but we put in hundreds of hours of work planning the mod in the first place, and none of that ever gets seen, it wouldn't be where it is today if we hadn't, I think that deserves a litte f'ing respect. I know that Kal never takes credit for the mods success, he does a damn good job, more than i've been able to do recently. I personally wasn't in this for the personal gain or credit, I know that founding a mod doesn't get you noticed like making a beautiful chapter, but that doesn't bother me, leave that to the people who do it best.

And anyway, this is the awards post, take your poorly informed abuse elsewhere.

Hey kal , you talk to your team members, donno why a couple would say stuff like that to me but thats your problem...

SirAlucard, grow up a bit.

Denzil " plan the mod " , not much to plan.... Theres a whole game there made for you to just source.

Kal, you have to admit... i dont see you had to have too much effort put into recruiting... People see " Black Mesa Source " and automaticly want to be in the mod... Alot of people go through your mod, you know it.

I dont hate you kal... just think that you've gotten it all too easy, should be a bit more thankful and respectful of your developers... and dont come back at me with an artificial Reply written like a robot.
No more promisses either.

Anyway, I aint most likely reading this thead again so i'll say Good work garry

We couldn't hire a single person for the first six months of the mod, we got nowhere, we've only recently been able to recruit how and when we want, literally the last few months.

Also, no planning needed? Sure if you want a **** mod then why not, but I'd like to see you make a good remake with new additions and technologies without pre-planning, it just won't work. Also you need to setup how the team and mod works internally. You can't have a clue what running a mod is like if you think thats the case.

Hah, you people make me laugh.
Garry didn't steal any code from anyone, he just got better off than JBMod and was strong enough to survive all the negative "omg tis not fun lol 15 mins uf joy not fun nemor" comments, and ended up with an alternative player base. Garry's Mod doesn't really fit into any of ModDB's categories as it doesn't have a determined gameplay - Garry's Mod lets the players unfold their creativity and with Lua in Garry's Mod v9 even coders can unfold themselves. I love the mod for the sandbox-gameplay style and for the sandbox-styled programming Garry has done - I bet he doesn't have a plan for what to do next to get more players to play Garry's Mod (which he probably doesn't want either).
I'd congratulate Garry for winning Mod of the Year with his rather different mod, which isn't as bad as you may think after having tried only the Weld tool and the Wheel tool... It has more than that. Go check the Wiki Garry set up, and go and check the forums for extra models and Lua scripts... It gets quite amusing after a while.
// Mortal.

I Was hoping for a list of honourable mentions. I would put Empires (HL2) on their for sure. It's only in beta, but I've spent a ton of time playing that game. It's an RTS/FPS that's really well done, has a great community, and I think it deserves to be mentioned a bit